This report Agricultural Policy Monitoring and Evaluation 2015 monitors agricultural policy developments in OECD member countries, and eight emerging economies: Brazil, China, Colombia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation, South Africa and Ukraine.

Producer Support Estimate (PSE): The annual monetary value of gross transfers from consumers and taxpayers to agricultural producers, measured at the farm gate level, arising from policy measures that support agriculture, regardless of their nature, objectives or impacts on farm production or income. It includes market price support, budgetary payments and budget revenue foregone, i.e. gross transfers from consumers and taxpayers to agricultural producers arising from policy measures based on: current output, input use, area planted/animal numbers/receipts/incomes (current, non-current), and non‑commodity criteria.

This report covers OECD countries and a range of emerging economies which are important players on world markets. These 49 countries account for about 88% of global value added in agriculture. Their agricultural policies reflect the heterogeneity of the roles that agriculture plays in their economies. Irrespective of the structural differences across countries, they share a set of common goals that drive their agricultural policies: enabling the economic viability of the agricultural sector and rural areas more generally, producing enough and nutritious food to cater to the needs of growing and more affluent global populations, and improving the long-term environmental sustainability of food production. Policy approaches attach different weights to these shared goals.

The key economic and market developments which provide the framework for the implementation of agricultural policies are analysed in the first part of this chapter. Highlights are then presented of the main recent changes and new initiatives in agricultural policies in 2013-15 in OECD countries and key emerging economies covered in this report. Then the developments in the estimated support (using the OECD Producer Support Estimate methodology) are evaluated in terms of its level, composition and changes over time in OECD countries and the emerging economies included in this report.